Corvid - Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some Frequently Asked Questions About the change to the new Corvid email system.

Q: How do I add an email address to the list of addresses that will point to me? (Also known as your "Mail Local Address" list.)

A: Only the administrators at the Help Desk can add or remove addresses on your Mail Local Address list.

Note: We expect that some users may want to change one or more of the defaults that are created on their initial list. To see what email addresses are currently assigned to you, check https://www.fac.cs.cmu.edu/corvid/lookup. To have an email address added, modified or removed, please contact the Help Desk.

Q: Where did these aliases come from?

A: The list of valid Mail Local Addresses for each user was initially seeded with variants of first and last name as well as userid at each of the following domains: cs.cmu.edu, scs.cmu.edu, ri.cmu.edu.

Additionally, or several months leading up to the start of the changeover to the new infrastructure, we have been collecting email addresses that have successfully delivered to a valid SCS mail account, in an effort to ensure that any fuzzy name match that was actively being used to send mail would be preserved.

If the person that has the account does not respond or can't be reached please contact the help desk for additional information.

If the user refuses to relinquish, and is a valid sponsored account, there is little that the help desk will do to pressure the user to relinquish the requested email address.

Q: Another user has Smith@cs.cmu.edu , can I get smith@ri.cmu.edu ?

A: Yes, if it is not being used by some other account.

Q: Should I add my hotmail, gmail, or andrew email address to the Mail Local Address list?

No. The list is of local email addresses. Your hotmail or gmail email addresses are not local. While andrew might be considered local, it is administered and maintained by another organization on our campus. Their system might have some similarities to ours, but that is purely coincedental. Andrew, from this perspective, is not local.

If you want to forward your email to your hotmail, gmail, or andrew account, you can change your email forwarding. Your Mail Local Address list has nothing to do with forwarding your email from CMU to offsite. It is only consulted when receiving email.

Q: Can I use Mail Local Address list to restrict what hints are accepted in username+hint@cs.cmu.edu ?

A: No.

Let's say that one entry in your Mail Local Address list is

username+@cs.cmu.edu

Then all email to username+hint@cs.cmu.edu will match this local address. The hint can be any alpha/numeric string.

The help desk will not enter addresses like username+specialhint@cs.cmu.edu to your Mail Local Address list. They will allow username+@cs.cmu.edu to be added to your Mail Local Address list. And this would allow you to recieve email addressed to username+specialhint@cs.cmu.edu. But we have not implemented this to allow filtering of such hints upon reciept of the email.

If you recieve email on our imap server, you can filter based on this hint by using Sieve.

Q: What address should I use in my default From: or Reply-To: field?

A: When you send email, your email message will have a From: and/or possibly a Reply-To: field with your email address. Different clients allow you to choose or set these field independent of what is in your Mail Local Address list.

Note: requests for exceptionally long names will require some amount of justification regarding how it is important to your research, study, or job.

While there are no specific rules for what can be used, we try to use these general guidelines

If it has a hyphen or minus sign -, like scs-all, then it is associated with a mailing list.

If it has a dot or underscore, then it is a persons name.

If it has a plus, then what is before the plus is a username or login id.

There are few execeptions to these rules.

Q: What are the valid domains for email addresses on my list?

A: The Mail Local Address list associated with your account can have any of the following domains:

@cs.cmu.edu

@ri.cmu.edu

@scs.cmu.edu

@ices.cmu.edu

@ml.cmu.edu

If you have a serious need for other local domains, please contact the Help Desk for details.

Q: What about addresses at specific machines?

A: Machines running Corvid will behave somewhat differently: there will be no fuzzy matching, delivery will take advantage of Mail Local Addresses, and in many cases there will be a reduction in SPAM. For machines that continue to run MMDF (for example: UX machines, unix desktops running older environments), these machines will not change behavior.

Regardless, you do not need to add a Mail Local Address for each individual machine at which you receive mail or have an account.